Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Motion capture may often be used to create realistic animation. Because human motion may be complex, yet inherently familiar to human observers, it may be difficult to produce believable human motion using current model and kinetics-based model-animation techniques. Additionally, a skilled animator may produce 2-5 seconds of animation per character per day, whereas motion capture may provide 5 minutes or more of usable motion per day. However, even 15 minutes per day of motion capture may make it expensive to add broad motion capture usage to media such as video games. Some games may include hundreds of characters, each with dozens of motions. Animating these motions may involve great expense.
In addition, some games or virtual environments with large-scale, immersive worlds may contain hundreds of characters, each having thousands of possible actions, many of which may be dynamically generated based on semi-unique positions and conditions. Animating all of these motions may be cost-prohibitive. Using the same animation for multiple characters and/or motions may be undesirable, because game consumers may easily recognize reused motions. Therefore, unique motions or variations between repeated motions may be desired, which may drive expenses even higher.